"But, Mr. Strangways, I don't understand a bit," I was beginning to protest, when he broke in on me.
"Oh, don't you see? It will all explain itself as you go on. I can't tell you about it in advance. I don't know. All I can say is that whatever happens you'll be needed, and if you're needed you'll be able to play the game."
He went on with further directions. It would be possible to take my seat in the train at twenty minutes before the hour of departure. I was to be early on the spot so as to be among the first to be in my place. I was to take nothing but a suit-case; but I was to put into it enough to last me for a week, or even for a week or two. I was to be prepared for roughing it, if necessary, or for anything else that developed. He would send me my ticket within an hour and provide me with plenty of money.
"But what is it?" I implored again. "It sounds like spying, or the secret service, or something melodramatic."
"It's none of those things. Just be ready. Wait where you are till you get your ticket and the money."
"Will you bring them yourself?"
"No. I can't; I'm too busy. I'm calling from a pay-station. Don't ring me up for any more questions. Just do as I've asked you, and I know you'll not regret it—not as long as you live."
He put up the receiver, leaving me bewildered. My ignorance was such that speculation was shut out. I kept saying to myself: "It must be this," or, "It must be that," but with no conviction in my guesses. One dreadful suspicion came to me, but I firmly put it away.
A little after twelve a special messenger arrived, bringing my ticket and five hundred dollars in bank-notes. I knew then that I was in for a genuine adventure. At one I put on my hat and coat, locked the door behind me, and went off to my hotel. Mentally I was leaving a work to which, from certain points of view, I was sorry to say good-by, but I could afford no backward looks.
At the hotel I packed my belongings and left them so that they could be sent after me in case I should not return. I might be back the next morning; but then I might never come back at all. I thought of those villagers who from idle curiosity followed the carriage of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette as it drove out of Varennes, some of them never to see their native town again till they had been dragged over half the battle-fields of Europe. Like them I had no prevision as to where I was going or what was to become of me. I knew only—gloatingly, and with a kind of glory in the fact—that I was going at the call of Larry Strangways, to do his bidding, because he believed in me. But that thought, too, I tried to put out of my mind. In as far as it was in my mind I did my best to express it in terms of prose, seeing myself not as the heroine of a mysterious romance—a view to which I was inclined—but as a practical business woman, competent, up-to-date, and unafraid. I was afraid, mortally afraid, and I was neither up-to-date nor competent; but the fiction sustained me while I packed my trunks and sent a telegram to Hugh.